New funny books, ahoy! (Possible spoilers, ahoy, as well.)
- Superman/Batman #12 finally made it out to our neck of the woods this week. If I weren’t an incorrigible Superman fan, I probably would have skipped out on this series entirely…the artwork’s hard on my aging eyes, and this new iteration of Supergirl just ain’t doin’ it for me. I did like the confrontation between Darkseid and Bats, though.
- The Teen Titans/Legion Special does indeed set up the new status quo for the new ongoing Legion of Super-Heroes series, while sort of leaving the door open for a return to the previous status quo(s), if necessary. (Though, as Dorian noted to me earlier today, some fans won’t be happy until the Legion is exactly as it was 40 years ago.)
- Demo #10 – it’s a return to the series gimmick of a character with an apparent superpower…but with a nice, creepy twist on that theme. I don’t want to say more that’ll give it away, spoiler warning or not.
- Hulk/Thing #2 – still continues to intrigue, and I’m really wondering what the upshot of all this is going to be. Some nice bits of self-aware dialogue, too: “Need someone new to write yer stuff, pal!”
- Swamp Thing #8, which I actually got last week, when I took home the preview copy we received so I could read it early, and, well, forgot to bring it back. No, I really did forget, stop looking at me like that. Anyway, nice wrap-up to the story, with artist Richard Corben giving everything an extra layer of creepiness (particularly his rendition of Arcane).
- Hellboy: Odder Jobs is a new collection of short prose stories about everyone’s favorite demonic paranormal investigator…I’ve liked the previous Hellboy prose books, so I expect this one to be fun as well. And it has a Sharyn McCrumb story!
- I had completely forgotten about the Essential Monster of Frankenstein collection from Marvel, so this was a nice surprise today. The black and white Essentials format seems tailor-made for Marvel’s horror line (more so than for the superhero books, which look pretty awful in these reprints), so I can’t wait to plow through this volume. I expect we’ll probably see an Essential Man-Thing soon enough. Or maybe an Essential Tales of the Zombie! That I’d really like to see.
Other new arrivals (more SPOILERS):
- I didn’t buy the Loki series, which from all accounts actually turned out to be not half bad. I did look at the last few pages of the final issue, though…and if I’m reading things correctly, you could probably do some kind of deconstructive analysis of the story, with Thor representing Marvel Comics’ desire to maintain the status quo, and Loki as DC, wishing to struggle against the status quo but ultimately falling before it. Or maybe not. At any rate, I’ll give this series a second look when the trade comes out any second now.
- The Complete Peanuts 1950-4 Boxed Set arrived today, which is completely frustrating since we didn’t get the second volume separately yet. And that is a nice slipcase on the set…no, no, already have first volume, musn’t buy set. As a certain round-headed blockhead would say — “Rats.”
- The Simple Life Cinemanga has arrived. Dwell on that, if you will.
- Another issue of Youngblood, now with dirty words! Gasp! Or did the previous issue have dirty words, too? Ah, who cares.
- The new Aliens Vs. Predator graphic novel, Thrill of the Hunt, is now out in convenient digest format, just in time for the movie to have finished its run in theatres and for no one to care anymore.
